


in the spring we made a boat

by goinghost



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Gay Character, Dust (The Adventure Zone), F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Sibling Love, spoilers for the dust finale, the mathis twins love each other and i love them, this was supposed to be about dylan addressing his got damn issues but it became Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 14:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14083128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goinghost/pseuds/goinghost
Summary: The thing is...Dylan’s had a lot of time to think.--Dylan thinks. Anne affirms. Errol is there in spirit.





	in the spring we made a boat

**Author's Note:**

> the original title of this fic was "this was supposed to be fix it you absolute buffoon" 
> 
> i set out to write a fic about dylan having a pseudo-therapy session instead of working on my fiction essay and it turned into the mathis twins having Emotions. ain't that just the way. i feel like everyone is going hog hyphen wild over dylan (rightfully so, i am to) and not enough people are talking about anne. personally i've always been a complete sucker for siblings (i've got three) so it really shouldn't have surprised me when i completely changed plans 200 words in. 
> 
> title is from 'your bones' by of monsters and men. listen to that song while reading and think of me as i descend into my shallow grave that i dug myself

The thing is...Dylan’s had a lot of time to think. 

 

Silver poisoning is no joke, as Mr. Ryehouse ( _ Please, just call me Errol)  _ likes to point out when he comes for a visit and Dylan complains about being trapped in bed for weeks on end. And he got hit right where it hurts. (‘Course, silver’s likely to hurt you all over if you aren’t careful, but a gut shot isn’t even pushing your luck anymore, it’s plain imbecilic.)

 

So he’s been anchored to his house for the past month, still needing assistance to get down stairs to get a glass of water. The approaching full moon’s been helping, although the stark reminder of what his body is capable of when it’s full of adrenaline less so. But he tries not to dwell on it too long, adds it to the list of things he needs to talk to  _ someone  _ about before his innards collapse, and this time it won’t be because of a knife to the stomach. ‘Sides, there are other things on Dylan’s mind in the weeks he’s bedridden, more important things. Anne. 

 

Because Dylan’s had a lot of time to think while lying back and staring at the uneven texture of his ceiling, lot of time to consider the way Anne was so trepidatious about asking him to be her and Jeremiah’s witness, the way she always glanced at him before taking Jeremiah’s hand, the way she looked so sad when she caught Dylan staring. Anne knew. Anne knew maybe even before Dylan himself. After all, accepting the fact that the man you love is also the man your sister, who you’d do anything for, loves, and that he loves her back probably more than he’d ever love you can take a while. (He thinks about Jem. Heir to the Blackwells and so head-over-heels for a Mathis that he can’t even wait for the treaty to marry her. Stubborn, impulsive Jeremiah Blackwell.

 

She’d never said anything to him. He doesn’t know what he would’ve done if she had, while they were in the thick of it. Denied it, no doubt; run away somewhere for a while, get too drunk at the Full Moon, and sob into the dirt of his father’s grave until Anne showed up just as the sun was rising to tell him that it’ll be alright, that they’ll figure something out. 

 

She still hasn’t said anything (not that he expected her to, so soon after Jeremiah’s death.) She’s taken to sitting with him when she can, when she’s not out working or arranging for the funeral. Said she won’t have it until he can walk with the procession on his own two feet. God, he loves her. 

 

She likes to read to him, stories of all kinds that always have a happy ending. She knows how bored he gets when left to his own devices. He likes listening to her voice as she pretends to be this character and that. It’s soothing background noise for his self-imposed contemplation. It reminds him of when they were little and Anne would engineer fantastic tales by the candlelight flickering off the walls of the silly clubhouse them and Jeremiah had put together in Jem’s backyard. 

 

She’s in the middle of a harrowing monologue about a star’s ability to love when she stops abruptly. Dylan turns to look at her in the sudden quiet, grunting out a soft, “Anne?”

Anne closes the book she’d been reading from and gets up off the chair they’d set in the corner of the room just for her, by the window so she’d have the best light. She approaches Dylan with a caution that they’d not only outgrown but practically never had. She grasps his hand. “You loved him too, didn’t you?”

 

Dylan froze, just for a second stuck in a time a month ago when any question about Jeremiah Blackwell was enough to send him running to the hills. But he relaxed back into the present of Anne holding his hand, Anne dressed in black and still mourning, Anne reading him a story about love. He nodded, then cleared his throat and said, “I did.”

 

“Oh, Dylan…” She squeezed his palm, tucking a lock of his shaggy hair behind a pointed ear. There were tears glittering in her eyes. “What are we gonna do?”

 

He resisted the urge to shrug. She always asked the hard questions, ever since they were little, but if anyone deserved a definitive answer, it was Anne Mathis. “I wish I knew.”

 

Anne wiped at her eyes, but there were tracks down her cheeks now, “I’m glad you were there...when he died.” And then Dylan was crying too. “He loved you. I’m glad you were there.”

 

“You shoulda seen him, Anne, it shouldn’tve been me.” 

 

Anne gave a surprised laugh at that, sending a jolt through Dylan, “You think Jeremiah Blackwell would ever want me to see him on his deathbed? He wouldn’t even let me see him when he had a stuffy nose.” She sniffed, “Too damn proud of his image for his own wife. But not for you, Dyl.”

 

And he...he didn’t know what to say to that. So he didn’t say anything, just reached an arm around his sister’s shoulder and tried to pull her close, pet her hair like he used to do when they were younger and she got scared of the dark and the moon and how different they became for a few days out of every month. 

 

Anne sobbed into the awkward crook of his arm, whispering just loud enough for him to hear, “He’s gone, Dyl. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

 

And he nodded and sobbed with her, a million thoughts he’d had since soaking in a bloodstained shirt in the sheriff’s office flitting through his head, the reality of his sister keeping him grounded. “He loved you, Mrs. Blackwell.”

 

Anne took a shuddering breath and pulled back, just enough to look him in the eye, “He loved  _ us _ , Dylan. Don’t you ever forget that.” 

 

Clutching Anne’s hand, the burn of silver still deep in his gut, Dylan knows he won’t. 


End file.
